Recently on
Morning Joe David
Frum, lamenting Mitt Romney's presidential bid fiasco, said, "Mitt Romney could
have been a really good president . . ." but he was "twisted into pretzels . . . the people that put cement
shoes on his feet are now blaming him for sinking." There are lots of
recriminations to go around, and blaming Mitt Romney for the loss in his second-time bid for the presidency is just one. Yet this does not compute. It defies
simple logic. They twisted him in pretzels but he "would be a really good
president." Ironically, this would-be-really-good president, Mitt Romney,
allowed himself to be twisted in pretzels and had cement shoes put on his feet
without resistance. Mr. Romney did not push back against this but if he did it's clear he did not succeed.

Romney as
president would not have had to do much. On this point Grover
Norquist said, "All
we have to do is replace Obama. We are not auditioning for fearless
leader. We don't need a president to tell us in what direction to go. We know
what direction to go. We just need a president to sign this stuff. Pick a
Republican with enough working digits to handle a pen to become president of
the United States. His job is to be captain of the team, to sign the
legislation that has already been prepared." The would-be-really-good
president never shared anything about his time at Bain Capital, his taxes over
10 years, his signature legislative achievement, Romney Care, or his
governorship of Massachusetts. This would-be-really-good president/manager's
raison d'Ãªtre for being president is repealing Obama Care and privatizing Social
Security and Medicare to funnel more money to rich people like himself as tax
breaks, because he has said rich people create jobs and 47 percent of Americans
are takers. This would-be-really good president went abroad and insulted the
Brits and pissed off the Palestinians. He accused the president of leading from
behind, and of bowing down to foreign leaders. Gov. Romney thinks Russia is the
greatest threat to the United States. And he seems to have been rattling the
sabers against Iran (and maybe China, too).

Mitt Romney
lost his run for the presidency despite millionaires and billionaires betting
on him. These rich Romney donors could have made a better return in a vulgar
savings account at a local bank instead of the trifle one- to three-percent return
they got from trying to make Romney president. Or better yet, they could have
plunked their money down in the stock market and made a ton of money. Did you
hear that the stock market would do better under Romney as if it did poorly
under Obama! Flash? The fact is the stock market doubled under Obama. Rich guys
like the Koch brothers, casino mogul Sheldon Adelson, among others, gave Mitt Romney
billions (through Super Pacs, Karl Rove's American Crossroads and Crossroads
GPS, and other campaign donations) and instructed him to go kick Obama's
gluteus maximus. And the would-be-really-good president as a flawed campaigner
dissembled, flipped flopped, and "etch-a-sketched" his way to defeat. The
American voter is insightful and saw through the Bain Capital manager's faÃ§ade.
Americans are insightful in other ways, too: they did not return the rant
specialists Rep. Jose Wash (R-Ill.) and Rep. Allen West (R-Fla.) to office. And
they did not reward Robert Mourdock (Indiana Republican Senate candidate) and Rep.
Todd Akin (R-Missouri) for their ideological quirks about women's reproduction
issues. Further, this is a capitalist society by and large with a towering
market-driven economy. Everyone appreciates that, including President Obama, and
there is nothing his opponents can point to that puts that in doubt. An
investment is a bet and in this capitalist-market economy a bet is not a sure
thing. If losing big campaign donors remember this, they'll feel much better.

The
community organizer, the usurper, the anti-Christ, the Marxist, the communist, the
socialist, the Fascist, the Muslim, the Trojan Horse, and the anti-Colonialist-to-reduce-U.S.'s-world-influence
Dinesh D'Souza's Kenyan ran a better campaign than the rich, would-be-really-good
president/manager. If by "really good" great is implied, then please don't
conflate rich with great--for example, people often don't use great and rich at
the same time when referring to Donald Trump. Oops, but I just did and I'm
sorry! Most of us are still waiting for his investigators' report from Hawaii
on Obama's birth certificate.

The
community organizer gave the manager a "whuppin." The pundits at Fox like Sean Hannity,
Bill O'Reilly, Karl Rove, Michele Malkin, Laura Ingraham, Megyn Kelly, Steve
Doocy, Gretchen Carlson, and Brian Kilmeade (as well Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter), are still pulling their hair out. They are still disheveled having been hit by
a tsunami campaign result they did not see coming. They thought money, wistful
thinking, misrepresentation, and name-calling would soften up Obama for Romney.
The Supreme Court ruling on Citizen
United would (did) unleash a torrent of funds for Romney to spend against Obama.
Gov. Rick Scott of Florida, Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin, and Gov. John
Kasich of Ohio all did their part with voter-ID requirements, and other forms
of voter-suppression activities to try to help Romney carry the day. The Oscar
for the effort to suppress the vote goes to Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted.
He attempted to ignore a district court order to restore early voting. When
that failed he took it to an appeals court where the court ruled against
him. But he is anything but persistent so he went to the U.S. Supreme Court and
got rebuffed there as well. However, the Ohioans he tried to disenfranchise,
African Americans and Latinos, went to the polls en masse and voted for Barack
Obama. Republicans (including Joe Scarborough) said Nate Silver showed Obama
ahead. And to their peril, pundits and partisans
dismissed with disdain Mr. Nate's statistical analysis showing a 73.6 percent
chance (final probability was over 90 percent) of a President Obama win but
embraced instead an outlier. That is, they accepted the right-of-center
Rasmussen polling numbers showing Romney winning. And instead of rallying
around the commander-in-chief when the U.S. Embassy in Benghazi, Libya, was
attacked, for political points Romney accused Obama of supporting the
terrorists who killed Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens. In this quaint universe, science is damned! Statistics are damned! Up is down and down is up. And guano is caviar.

The
would-be-good president/manager Mitt Romney got lots of help from others, aside
from rich contributors to his campaign. Birthers Gov. Bobby Jindal, Gov. Mike
Huckabee, Cathy McMorris Rogers (R-WA), Gov. Rick Scott, and Donald Trump
weighed in, too, trying to damage the president. Even Orly Taitz, the mother of all birthers, pitched in sidewise
for Romney by continuing to question Obama's legitimacy to be president of the
United States. The November 6th
presidential results put all these fatuous efforts to rest. One would hope! But
there is a cadre of Americans who will never accept Obama. The evidence is
about 400 Ole Miss students rioted in protest over Obama's re-election victory.
And UMass Amherst teetered on the brink of a riot, too, but the police
intervened and dispersed the students. And who can forget Karl Rove's breakdown
on Fox News.

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The
elections are over! Thank God!

From all
this what did we learn? We learned "you cannot fool all of the people all of
the time." But the greatest lesson is rich men are not always wise men. They,
too, make bad investments. And regarding the would-be-really-good
president/manager versus the community organizer/president, it's possible the
"really good president" is in fact the community organizer.

"All's well
that ends well," WS--The Barb.

Seymour Patterson received a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Oklahoma in 1980. He has taught courses and done research in international economics and economic development. He has been the recipient of two Fulbright awards--the first in (more...)